East Pomeranian Offensive

The East Pomeranian Offensive (24 February-4 April 1945) was an offensive operation carried out by the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany in Pomerania (the Baltic Sea coast of Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast, Poland, and northeastern Germany). The Soviets captured Kolberg and Danzig from the Germans, and the Germans were forced to evacuate both their troops and civilians from the region.

Offensive
Konstantin Rokossovsky's 2nd Byelorussian Front (996,100 Red Army troops) launched an offensive into East Pomerania after liberating Warsaw, with Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front starting the Silesian Offensives at the same time. The Soviets aimed at capturing the German port city of Danzig in East Prussia as well as their fortress of Kolberg (present-day Kolobrzeg in northwestern Poland), and they faced Walter Weiss' Army Group North as their opposition. The Soviets sent armor to spearhead the assault against the Wehrmacht, and on 4 March the Soviet tanks reached the Baltic, leaving German forces in Pomerania caught in several pockets. On 8 March the fortress of Marienburg fell to the Soviets, Kolberg on 18 March after the Germans successfully evacuated thousands of soldiers and civilians, and Danzig on 28 March. At Danzig, 39,000 German troops were killed or missing and 10,000 were captured, and the Soviets drove the Germans back.

The battle was not an easy victory, however. The 3rd Panzer Army of Hasso von Manteuffel held its position at a headquarters as eight waves of Soviet tanks assaulted their positions. The Germans used the Jagdpanzer IV tank destroyers to inflict heavy losses on Soviet armor, having rescued a convoy that contained a Jagdpanther; although the Jagdpanther was isolated on a western road by itself and could not move due to damaged tracks, it weakened the Soviet armor before it even came into combat with the main German armored forces. The German armored line was later reinforced by smaller units of three tanks on either side, with the right flank being located near some houses in a snowy field while the left flank was behind a small wall in front of a farm field. The field was littered with destroyed Soviet tanks due to the German Jagdpanzer IVs' immense power, and the Soviets were held off with heavy losses. In the battle, the Soviets lost 440 troops and 111 vehicles, while the Germans lost only 60 men and 12 vehicles. However, the Soviets were able to move past their heavy losses like in every other Soviet victory and defeated the Germans by early April.